


call it positive reinforcement

by onakissgodknows



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Elias Bouchard Being a Bastard, Gen, Mind Manipulation, Psychological Torture, but you could interpret as friendship if you prefer, implied sasha james/tim stoker - Freeform, oh that was a tag already? love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24283888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onakissgodknows/pseuds/onakissgodknows
Summary: I could help you remember her, Tim.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 35





	call it positive reinforcement

**Author's Note:**

> This is all just canon-typical Elias fuckery, so it's horrible, but it's only as horrible as he literally is in canon. 
> 
> I was thinking, "damn, bummer we never saw Elias fuck with Tim's head like he did Melanie and Martin" and then I was like "damn, somebody should write that," and that somebody is me. This is set sometime in season 3, which I listened to in mere days, so my timeline is probably a little wonky.

It’s three a.m. and Tim is alone in the tunnels below the archive, heading for the archive itself. He wishes it were quiet. He wishes it were peaceful, but it never is here, not completely. There’s always some distant pipe dripping, loudly echoing through the halls, or there’s scratching on the walls that he can’t entirely convince himself he’s imagining. And, of course, there’s the ever-present knowledge that he’s being watched. That idea, that feeling of discomfort, took root in the pit of his stomach months ago, sometime after Prentiss attacked, and only got worse once Martin pulled him aside to tell him Jon had been spying on him.

Even that is old news now. No, Tim has to get used to being watched, because his creepy boss basically can’t help it, and his creepy boss’s boss could probably help it if he wanted to, but…. Tim’s sure Elias gets a sick thrill out of it. Spying. Watching. _Knowing_. It makes Tim feel so sick some days he wants to throw up. Everybody else can feel it too, but Basira is disquietingly calm, Martin _still_ wants to pretend it’s not happening, Melanie’s been essentially declawed, and Jon is part of the problem. 

So if Tim can’t get any help from the others (not that he’d trust them even if he could), and he can’t quit, or run away, or get fired, he comes in at three a.m. He doesn’t sleep well these days anyway, and there’s still a reason he took a job at the Institute. He hasn’t forgotten.

Tim finds the ladder that leads up to Jon’s office and climbs it, then shoves his way through the trap door.

He’s pulled himself through and is almost to the office door before he notices Elias. Tim lets out a shout and grabs blindly for something – anything – to use as a weapon and his hand lands on an umbrella Jon must have left behind, which he brandishes wildly at Elias.

Elias just looks at him. He’s leaned up against the wall in the corner of the office, but now takes a step or two closer to Tim. “There’s no need for that.”

“No need?” Tim says, his chest heaving and heart hammering from the shock. “How do I know you weren’t waiting here to kill me? Leave my body for Jon to find? Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“No,” Elias says, “but I told you I don’t _want_ to have to do that.”

Tim laughs. “Looking for me to give you an excuse for it?” He drops the umbrella, holds his arms open. “Here I am, then. Defenseless. Get it over with.”

Elias ignores this. “I was hoping we might continue our conversation from before in my office. I thought I might find you in a more reasonable mood.”

“You haven’t, and I was hoping we might not,” Tim says, as if there’s really a choice.

“Tim,” Elias says testily, “you’ve been caught sneaking into your workplace in the wee hours of the morning. I know you’ve been taking things from the library and from artifact storage as well. Do you know how most employers would respond to such behavior?”

“Yeah,” Tim says with another laugh. “They’d fire me.” He holds his arms open wide again, daring Elias to do it, _please just fucking fire me_ -

“And you know I can’t, so I’d appreciate it if you’d make things a little easier on both of us.” He turns his back and goes for the door. “Come with me.”

Tim is pretty sure Elias isn’t going to kill him. He said he wouldn’t, so he probably won’t, right? Not that Tim necessarily hates the idea of dying, it’s just that he has a few things left to do before he goes. Like kill that clown. Possibly Elias too, but –

“You know,” Elias says from a few steps ahead of him, “between you and Melanie, the amount of anger in this building, from my own staff, is enough to drive a person mad.”

“Noticed, have you?” Tim says flatly.

“I don’t have to look very hard. Anger’s very bright. The two of you shine with it.” They reach Elias’s office and Elias takes out a key to unlock the door. “I hope you won’t take, er – shall we say, _her_ route?”

“Elaborate,” Tim says.

“I’d prefer not to be the subject of any further assassination attempts. They’re ugly and clumsy, and unpleasant even when I can see them coming.” He pushes the door open. “After you.”

Against all his better judgement, Tim walks into Elias’s office and feels like he’s entered the belly of the beast.

If Elias could see all along what Melanie had been planning, then surely he knows that premeditated murder isn’t really what Tim is up to. He has better things to worry about, but isn’t it just like Elias to assume this is all about him?

“We are both reasonable men, Tim,” Elias says as he strolls past him toward his desk, “and I don’t think there’s any reason we can’t come to some sort of understanding between us.”

“Like the one you came to with Melanie.” Tim keeps his voice even and cold. He doesn’t care much for Melanie, mostly because he doesn’t know her or trust her, but it’s impossible not to see just how subdued she’s been since her meeting with Elias. Somewhere in the deeper recesses of Tim’s psyche, there still exists the person he used to be, and that person probably would have thrown himself into trying to cheer Melanie up, be a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on, but, well – he’s got other things to worry about, and as for cheering Melanie up, there’s always Martin and his tea. Tim lifts his chin. “Do your worst. You’ve got nothing on me.”

Elias takes a seat at his desk. “You know, Tim, I do believe you’re right. There’s nothing more I can tell you about Danny.”

Tim hates the sound of Danny’s name in Elias’s mouth.

“You already know your brother died alone, in pain, and very, very frightened,” Elias says, and he lifts an eyebrow when Tim doesn’t move.

“Yes,” Tim says shortly. Elias won’t faze him like this. Tim already sees Danny’s death in his head every night when he tries to sleep. There was a time, happier than this one, when Tim could occasionally let go of it, have a real life and not let it consume him, but he’s slipping back into old habits, and that’s good. After all, this is why he’s here. This is why he exists anymore.

“You also know, then,” Elias goes on, “that your mother wishes it had been you.”

Tim stiffens a little at this. “Yes.” She’d never said anything, not to Tim’s face. She loves him deeply, Tim knows she does, but Danny had been her _baby_ , the golden child, better than Tim in every conceivable way. It isn’t her fault if she’s thought – not her fault that Tim overheard her asking his father if he thought it would have been better if it had been Tim who was gone and Danny still here.

His father had started to cry, and so had she. Tim never told her he’d heard. They never talked about it again.

Still, Elias still isn’t telling Tim anything he doesn’t already know, so Tim can take it.

“Then I thought we might try an alternate form of negotiation,” Elias says. “Call it positive reinforcement.”

Tim doesn’t move. Elias doesn’t strike him as a positive reinforcement kind of guy. Still, Elias doesn’t speak, just watches him that way Tim hates.

“What,” Tim finally says, “did you have in mind?”

Elias smiles. “Do you remember Sasha?”

“You mean the real one?” Tim deadpans. “No.” He doesn’t. He feels like he should, he wishes he could, but he doesn’t remember her – not her face, not her voice, nothing. He knows Jon has some tapes with her voice on them, he knows he could ask Jon for them and Jon would let him listen without question. Something always seems to hold him back.

“I could help you remember her, Tim,” Elias says.

“Give me more people to grieve? I think I’m okay,” Tim says. It’s one thing to wish he could remember her, but he can’t help but feel that if he could, it would open up wounds too painful to ignore.

“You’re already grieving,” Elias says, “but you’re grieving a person you can’t remember ever knowing. Don’t you think it would be a little easier if you did remember her? Don’t you think everyone deserves to be remembered?”

“Of course I – “ Tim heaves a sigh. Chalk subtle mind-fuckery up on the growing list of Elias’s crimes. “Are you offering a choice?”

Elias leans back in his chair. “Tim, to put it plainly, your attitude is awful. You weren’t nearly this bad when Jon first brought you down here to the archive. I thought if I offered you something nice, something happy….I might see a change for the better.”

Tim laughs. “I doubt it.” Still, now he’s thinking about Sasha, and he hates thinking about Sasha because it’s a name without a face attached to it. He thinks they were close. He thinks – she must have liked him, they must have been friends. He liked her too, didn’t he? He thinks when she started talking about that new boyfriend after the Prentiss attack, he’d felt something akin to jealousy, but even those memories, the ones of NotSasha, are faint. More than anything, it’s all tainted and he doesn’t trust any of it.

He should not trust Elias. He does not trust Elias. _But is he wrong?_ asks that niggling voice in the back of his head. Doesn’t Sasha deserve more than to disappear into oblivion, replaced by a monster with her name?

Tim tilts his chin out, defiant, like he’s doing this because he wants to and not because Elias is telling him to. “Okay,” he says stiffly.

Elias smiles. “Have a seat, Tim.”

Tim sits.

It hits him like a train.

There’s a woman in the archive and Tim doesn’t recognize her until he does. And then he _does_.

He remembers running to catch up with Sasha every morning when he’d see her walking into work. He remembers goofing around with Sasha in the kitchen during their lunch break and making fun of how _particular_ Martin can get about his tea. He remembers late nights trying to chase down sources and endless cups of coffee with Jon down in his office while Tim and Sasha type away and try to keep each other from falling asleep.

He remembers how hard he could make her laugh. He remembers that he once cried with her when his grief for Danny got to be too much and that she’d hugged him tight and he’d held on like she was something he couldn’t bear to lose.

He thinks they kissed once, but maybe Elias is fucking with him.

Mostly now he remembers Sasha, the real Sasha, and how she was funny and smart and witty, too talented and bright to work here and yet she did anyway for reasons she’d never be able to tell him. She was gorgeous and generous and kind, and her smile matched Tim’s – at least, would have matched Tim’s when he used to smile like that, and now that he remembers, he knows he hasn’t since she’s been gone.

He misses her. Oh God, he misses her so much, but the relief of remembering is so overwhelming that he hears himself sob, and then he remembers he’s in a chair in Elias’s office, not anywhere with Sasha, because Sasha is _nowhere_.

Then he suddenly knows –

“You _motherfucker_ ,” he hisses at Elias. “You _fucking_ animal, you let her go into artifact storage knowing full well – “ His breath catches in his throat.

“I was the last person to see Sasha James alive,” Elias says evenly. “But I hardly think I’m to blame. On the contrary, she was running for her life and left me behind.”

“It should’ve been you! Fuck you! It should have taken you, not her!” It hits him again, a flood of memories, though this time they’re not his. They’re Sasha’s, he can tell now, recognizes her voice in the way she breaths and whimpers as she runs through the storage room. She’s thinking – she’s scared. She’s so scared, not only for herself, but she’s worried about Tim. She’s worried that Jon and Martin are going to die, if not from the worms from the CO2. She hopes Tim got out safe.

She’s afraid she’s going to die.

It’s not death that awaits Sasha in the storage room, not really.

Tim does recognize NotSasha’s voice, and that’s a jolt, too, because for so long that had just sounded like _Sasha_ to him. That goddamn thing was a monster all along, something pretending to be Sasha, lovely, warm Sasha, while _it_ had none of her brightness or charm.

It comes for her. It takes her. It takes her apart, and Tim feels it – he feels what Sasha felt at the end, the blind terror, and how it felt to have her existence erased. Bit by bit, it erases Sasha, and Tim feels it – disappearing into a void, into an emptiness that shouldn’t exist, can’t exist, and for a few seconds he hears Sasha screaming, and Tim is screaming too, his throat raw. There’s nothing, and the nothing surrounds her and swallows her whole, and Sasha disappears from reality with nothing on her mind but fear.

It only lasts moments. Tim is slumped in the chair, breathing heavily, and his face is wet with tears.

Elias checks his watch. “All right, Tim, I think that’s enough for now. I know you have work to do.”

“I hate you,” he says, his voice hoarse.

“That’s unbecoming.”

“You said – you _said_ you’d only help me remember her – “

“You shouldn’t be so trusting. Besides, positive reinforcement only goes so far,” Elias says, his voice clipped. He stands and comes around to Tim’s side, and Tim flinches and jerks away when Elias tries to touch him. He stumbles to his feet and staggers backwards towards the door, wiping his face – _is he still crying?_ – and trying to recompose himself.

“You’re going to die someday soon,” Tim snarls. “I hope I’m around to watch.”

“Ah. Reasons to live.” Elias gives him a tight-lipped smile. “I want an attitude adjustment, Mr. Stoker. You knew Ms. James a long time. This was only a taste of what I could show you. The Stranger’s process is efficient but, er, lengthy, and I did not bother to fully show you _exactly_ what Sasha experienced before she was gone. Next time we can take our time.”

Tim chokes back a sob. “You – fuck you, you fucking bastard – “

Elias just watches him calmly, with a sort of detached fascination that turns Tim’s stomach. He’s going to be sick, but refuses to do it in front of Elias. He bends over, hands on his knees, catching his breath as if he’s just been on a long run and he’s still winded.

Tim hates Elias, hates him, hates him, and can’t do anything about it. He doesn’t know exactly what he did to Melanie, but if it was anything like this, he ought to be a little nicer to her.

Tim turns his back on Elias and leaves, entertaining himself with thoughts of Elias dying painfully. There’s sunlight filtering through the windows in the archive and – Christ, how long was he in that office?

This was not what he had in mind when he took the job at the Institute or when he followed Jon to the archives. Maybe he should have just stayed at his cushy office job, maybe he would have been a senior editor by now – or maybe his path had been laid out since the day he was born. Maybe he’s been watched all his life by fucking Elias, just waiting for him to stumble into the path that would lead him here.

Maybe Danny was always doomed, and it was always Tim’s fate to avenge him or die trying.

He ducks into the men’s restroom to splash water on his face, and his eyes look so haunted he scarcely recognizes himself.

He stares at himself in the mirror, trying to pinpoint when and how his face changed so much, how long these shadows have been under his eyes. When was the last time he shaved? Has he even eaten a proper meal this week?

This doesn’t change anything. He can’t let it change anything. Keep his head down, go about his business, put on a nice face for Elias – oh, if Elias wants nice, Tim will be the nicest fucking bastard he’s ever seen.

Tim gives his face one last splash with the icy water and then shuts it off. He needs to talk to Jon.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having writer's block and apparently the cure is to write about my faves crying.
> 
> I'm still a newbie to this podcast, so if you comment PLEASE refrain from talking about anything beyond the end of season 3, thank you!!!


End file.
